Henri Nouwen Quotes

I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you're able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something... it's about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting.

Patient and regular practice is the whole secret of spiritual realization. Do not be in a hurry in spiritual life. Do your utmost, and leave the rest to God.

Inner peace is impossible without patience. Wisdom requires patience. Spiritual growth implies the mastery of patience. Patience allows the unfolding of destiny to proceed at its won unhurried pace.

Ours is a God who waits. So who are we not to?

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

What you feel spiritually. I think a lot of that has to do with it. If you have no spiritual life, chances are everything is going to aggravate you, you're going to fly off the handle at everything and that's what I did in the past. I've kind of got that under control now.

The Scriptures contain many stories of people who waited years or even decades before the Lord's promises came to pass. What modern believers can learn from the patience of biblical saints like Abraham, Joseph, David, and Paul is that waiting upon the Lord has eternal rewards.

It's hard to be patient. It's hard to sit back and actually wait and allow everything - just let it be.

There comes a time when you have to exercise patience.

I don't stretch my hand out anymore, but I never get tired of waiting for the next magic.

Patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.

But the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord shall open a door to you in your trouble: wait upon Him, as the night watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on.

Darling, replied Valentine, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words,- "Wait and hope"?

Those who do not hope cannot wait; but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them...we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.

The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies but its obedience.

Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

May you find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith.

Waiting time is not wasted time. Something is being worked out - in us, in someone else, in the Universe.

Waiting is one of the great arts.

Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.

We've all felt anger. It can come when things don't turn out the way we want. It might be a reaction to something which is said of us or to us. We may experience it when people don't behave the way we want them to behave. Perhaps it comes when we have to wait for something longer than we expected. We might feel angry when others can't see things from our perspective. There seem to be countless possible reasons for anger….If we desire to have a proper spirit with us at all times, we must choose to refrain from becoming angry.

Learn to wait; invariably either things will change or your heart will.